Here, have a harbour

[darski]

I'm just curious about something. Now I do play at wussy warlord so this may affect the response.

In several games, I have shipped a settler to another continent, built a city and put in a harbour as first build. (cash rush) This was to enable trade with the other continent. i immediately then gift the city to whichever AI I deem worthy. I get rid of the city because I do not want to deal with a dogpile over a couple of sq miles of rocks.

Given a free harbour; is the AI likely to make roading to said city a priority?

I just did this in my current game and there were not many roads around at all. Within a few turns, the place was roaded and I could trade with all the AI there.

 

[vmxa]

It seems to me that the AI is not very good at making roads and tends to be very short on workers. IOW I would not count on that. Bring a worker and make the road and then gift it.

 

[darski]

It seems to me that the AI is not very good at making roads and tends to be very short on workers. IOW I would not count on that. Bring a worker and make the road and then gift it.

I considered that but I didn't have room in the boat for a worker .

...fortunately - they did road it quickly. I was just wondering if it set a priority or if I just got a lucky roll of the die on that one.

 

[DWetzel]

I doubt it cares about connecting to the city with a harbor, but connecting cities via road seems to be a fairly high priority in general, does it not? I've seen workers in the middle of wilderness building a road between an empire and a random city that they captured or popped from a hut.

 

[GamezRule]

I have never tried this gambit, I find that it is more or less a wasted settler, since AI will usually have harbors by the time I could spare a settler. Then again, the AI is stronger on higher levels, and that means that they can build a harbor sooner. On Cheftian/Warlord, I usually had to wait until the early Industrial Age before the AI got their act together and built harbors.

 

[Quintillus]

An interesting gambit. I doubt the AI would make roading that city a higher priority, though I could be wrong, but the AI does tend to road cities fairly quickly in general. What else was on the boat, though? Unless you had another settler en route to another island, it does seem like sending a settler + worker and leaving out defending units would be worth it - worst things worst, you can probably still cash rush the harbor and gift it to an AI that isn't the one that is charging towards your city, and eat the worker.

 

[darski]

My sole purpose is to build that harbour and leave. I just did this with Sumer in my current game (they were the closest civ to the city) and they roaded in good order.

(ooh. just remembered that I have to kill that Roman city on that same area. )

 

[AutomatedTeller]

The AI seems to prioritize harbors on islands. On a pangea, i've had emperor AI's not make a harbor till the early AD's.